


Hell and High Water

by MadameFluffnStuff



Series: The Cuddling Hour Is Upon Us--ficlets from tumblr [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Katara (Avatar), hurt/comfort dialogue prompt challenge, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27263548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameFluffnStuff/pseuds/MadameFluffnStuff
Summary: “I heard you scream. Nightmares again?”
Relationships: Aang & Katara (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Series: The Cuddling Hour Is Upon Us--ficlets from tumblr [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981606
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	Hell and High Water

**Author's Note:**

> (from tumblr) @penguinsledder's ask for the hurt/comfort dialogue prompt challenge:
> 
> Kataang + #12: “I heard you scream. Nightmares again?”

Being a waterbender meant being able to feel the tide like a second self. Being a waterbender meant being able to feel the cold dread of the ocean reeling back into a tsunami; it meant being able to drown in the horror of knowing what was coming and being helpless to stop it.

Being Aang’s consort gave Katara just as much power and twice as much dread as being a waterbender, especially at this time of year.

Her suitor’s smile was bright but not blinding, and the feeling of a tsunami was harder than difficult to shake.

Aang sat on the roof most nights. He snuck back to their bed under the delusion that she could sleep without him safe and beside her.

Nervous grey glances and sleepless silver stares cried over the danger he wouldn’t tell her about. Katara had half a mind to freeze him in place and squeeze answers from him like wringing water from a wet rag.

Fall was the season of dead and dying things. Fall was also the season when the wind blew strongest and loudest. It swept through the halls in a million mourning howls.

Aang sat on the roof even during the day, now.

Katara had half a mind to freeze him in place and hug his worries from him like wringing water from a wet rag.

This night was different. She caught him before he snuck away to the roof. She froze him with her stare, and she wished she knew what he saw in her eyes.

“Sit with me?”

She took his hand before he could nod. She took him to the hill overlooking the place they called their home before he could ask where they were going.

The full moon passed a few nights ago. It peaked down at them as if from behind a black curtain.

The grass was stiff and crunched with their every movement. Aang laid still beside her. Her healer’s instinct would have made Katara lay their blanket over the cold corpse he resembled if not for his twiddling thumbs reminding her that he was alive.

The tsunami was cresting the horizon. She could see it pooling in his eyes.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Katara’s voice was a whisper, but Aang still flinched from the sound. He nodded. His throat bobbed. He didn’t take his eyes off the stars.

“And you know I love you more than anything, right?”

The grass crunched. He hugged himself.

“And you know you’re the worst in the world at hiding things and break my heart when you try, right?”

Aang closed his eyes. His face suddenly aged a hundred years. Something sad and heavy bent his brow into a scowl. His lip trembled like an exhausted muscle struggling to keep something from crushing him.

Katara swallowed and dug in her heels but into what she couldn’t quite place. The tsunami crashed and cut her open. The grass crunched. She fought the current of a god’s hand. His tears were saltwater on her lips, his wet hiccup a rogue wave crushing her against jagged shoreline stones.

“Do you want to know how I figured it out?”

Katara’s lungs refused to fill, but she didn’t come up for air until Aang came up with her. He choked on a sob and hugged himself tighter. The wind was warm and moaning. Dead leaves like nameless faces were a whirlpool sucking him deeper.

“I heard you screaming.” Katara pressed her face to his and tried not to drown in the swelling rivers of wet heat rushing down her cheeks. The scalding wound, fresh and bleeding with no sign of stopping, from Aang’s shaky breath—he was an _airbender_ , damn it all—peeled her raw. “Nightmares again?” She worded it like a question, but she said it like a fact.

Aang’s arms unfolded like floodgates being opened. Something desperate crunched the grass, even through the blanket. His hand was cold and trembling when it finally found hers.

Katara rolled him onto his side, towards her, like a corpse that could still be revived. The blanket was warm but not nearly tight enough when she tugged it closer around them. Aang pressed his face to hers and held her like she was the only truth he could rely on as an absolute.

She bathed him in a thousand saltwater kisses. She froze him in place with a hug that wrung out his nightmares like water from a wet rag.

The wind was a coo and licked them with a million tender touches. It hummed a nostalgic lullaby that made their skin hum, fuzzy, as if caught in a daydream.

Aang’s voice was broken and under repair, but it grew stronger when Katara burrowed her face under his jaw and kissed the knot that had been clogging his throat.

“...I never screamed.”

Katara hugged him like he might be swept away. “You didn’t have to.”

His smile was weak but his heartbeat was strong. It jumped towards hers like it might somehow kiss it if it tried hard enough.

Aang held her tighter. He breathed properly for the first time in days. His soul was splinters and broken pieces scattered across the shore.

But Katara was a waterbender.

Being Aang’s consort meant being able to feel him like a second self. Being his full moon meant being able to give him strength when he was stripped to the last of his. Being his lasting truth and absolute meant being able to feel the settling calm as his waters grew still; it meant breathing in the peace that she knew was coming and fighting anything that would dare stop it.

Being a waterbender gave Katara only a fraction of the joy and only half the power that his blinding smile brought her, especially when she tamed his storm.

He was water in her hands; he was an endless ocean hiding a thousand monsters and million beautiful things.

She waded in his shallows and picked up his pieces before they drifted too far away. She held him close, shared the weight of something she couldn’t name, and began her repairs.

Because Katara was a waterbender.

She could sense when there was a tsunami.

And she would stand with him— _always—_ even through hell and high water.


End file.
